Over the past few months I have had the opportunity to make a series of presentations to large groups, meet with several organizations one-on-one and do some consulting work in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego. Readers who are knowledgeable of the history of telecommuting know Southern California was one of the first areas in North America to implement telecommuting. It has certainly received the most publicity associated with this work option of any area in the US. So it was very interesting for me to observe first-hand the use of telecommuting in these four cities.
During my stay in California I had ample time to "slowly" enjoy the massive freeways around Los Angeles. I was usually fortunate enough to be in a vehicle with at least one other person....allowing us to qualify as a 'car pool'! (California must be the only state to define a car pool this way.).
Clearly there is a major transportation problem here. The media have often reported telecommuting is widely used in this area. Having driven the freeways I can understand why!
The surprising news is that telecommuting is not really widely utilized in California! There certainly is a need for it from a commute management point of view. (I spoke to several people who spend 2-3 hours every day commuting). There is also a need to telecommute from an environmental perspective. What is only starting to catch on is the need to telecommute for business reasons.
Many Southern California organizations are just beginning to deal with the potential business benefits to be derived from telework. They are looking at enhanced productivity, improvements in customer service and opportunities for space sharing / real estate savings. In other words they are dealing with the same challenges most other North American organizations are tackling today.
My point in this editorial is not to criticize Southern California. There are many companies in the area who have successfully tested and implemented telecommuting. Several are U.S. leaders in space sharing, customer service improvements and productivity enhancements. What stands out is that telecommuting inflicts significant change on organizations, employees and society in general. Southern California is no exception.
You start to see the difficulty in adjusting to major change as you drive the freeways. I quizzed an Angelino over dinner about the criteria for driving in the car pool lane. I explained in my experience a car pool lane would be restricted to at least three people per vehicle, if not four. My host reminded me of the difficulties associated with implementing change. People love their cars. They do give them up easily. If car pool lanes required three or more occupants per vehicle they would be empty. And the other five lanes would still be filled with single occupant vehicles.
The message from Southern California is an important one to remember: change is never easy. Change of the magnitude associated with home-based telework is significantly greater than many of us imagined in the beginning and requires a huge amount of energy to manage. But it's the only way we will get our telework programs off the ground and ensure their growth in our organizations is at a level likely to produce results. Otherwise, like our friends in sunny Southern California, we will have only a few people in the "telework lane" while everyone else stays mired in the "business-as-usual office lane".
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